Large-Scale Land Acquisitions, Local Resource Access, and Labor Allocation in Liberia
Limiting access to agricultural lands and forests could undermine rural households’ livelihoods, change their allocation of labor, and affect their resource dependence. We estimate the effects of one such limitation—the transfer of land-use rights to private companies for commercial agricultural production—on local resource availability, wealth, and labor allocation using over 1,200 household surveys conducted in Liberia. We find evidence of a decrease in access to agricultural land (one to five hectares) and the quality of community forests due to such land deals, which led to greater food insecurity and lower wealth. To cope with such shocks, households affected by the land deals worked one to eight hours per week more in the forestry sector compared with those unaffected by the land deals. Also, the number of out-migrants among the affected households that had not worked in the forestry sector prior to a land transfer and had fewer assets (<3rd quartile) increased by 0.4–0.8 members per household. These results highlight the importance of access to agricultural land and forests for rural livelihoods and of labor reallocation, including out-migration, as important mechanisms of coping with livelihood shocks
Year of publication: |
2023
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Authors: | Jung, Suhyun ; Akinyemi, Taiwo |
Publisher: |
[S.l.] : SSRN |
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